As a journalism educator, I’m constantly collecting links to examples of stories that attempt innovate and redefine the narrative form online. For years, story structures online have mostly been a repurposing of legacy formats — TV, radio and print. While we are starting to see the journalism industry leverage digital media in very powerful ways, more often it’s a complementary component to a more traditional story structure. For example, you might see an interactive graphic or map or audio slideshow off to the side of a text story.

Then came Snow Fall.

It was posted on the front page of the NYTimes.com website in late 2012. The day it published, I received a dozen e-mails from faculty members, students and non-journalism colleagues with messages akin to ‘Hey, did you see this?’

A few of us at the Berkeley j-school who specialize in multimedia journalism — Richard Koci Hernandez, Paul Grabowicz and myself — have been poring over the project, trying to decipher what it brings to the table and how it might exemplify future story structures.

The integration of multimedia in Snow Fall was purposeful. As New York Times Graphics Director Steve Duenes explained in an interview with Poynter Online, they were looking to find ways to create a seamless experience, “…So it didn’t feel like you were taking a detour, but the multimedia was part of the one narrative flow.”

Beyond the multimedia integration, there were various technical and design components brought into play:

There are silent videos that automatically play; some of them providing a graphical backdrop, others as informative graphics.

There is a scrolling mechanism (called jquery.inview) which will trigger actions as the user scrolls. For example, it will play a video, graphic animation or change some CSS properties like fading the background.

A “curtain” effect that reveals or covers images and videos as the user scrolls.

While some of these are simple design embellishments, their power lies in the emotional response they trigger as you venture through the story — and I use “venture” intentionally, because this is the feeling that it evokes. Effective design triggers an emotional response which can enhance the story structure.

Video Animations

From the opening video animation — which could have just been a static image — the viewer is taken to a barren and ominous place. Using silent videos instead of still images is a much more effective way of conveying this sense of place.

Example of a Cinemagraph

I am seeing more of this use of video animation in place of static images in projects done by our grad students. It’s a way of making static design come alive, similar to the way portraits stare at their gazers in the Harry Potter world, or how Cinemagraphs can elicit a captivating — albiet sometimes creepy — viewer response.

In Snow Fall, the opening animated images set the mood of the project in a similar fashion to background music setting the mood of a movie. It creates an atmosphere from the very moment the project opens. It’s important that these videos are silent and repetitive. They aren’t narratives — they aren’t meant to be watched or played in the same fashion as a stand-alone video. Also, auto-playing audio on websites is considered poor design practice and annoying to users.

I expect we will be seeing many more video animations as a design element in future online journalism packages.

Scrolling

Next, let’s look at the various scrolling mechanisms in play. I am a proponent of using scrolling as a narrative device, even when the primary medium is not text. It is a new trend I’ve noticed and very different from the traditional non-scrolling routes such as clicking on arrows or tabs.

One example of a scrollable narrative is a blog post by Cabel Sasser, co-founder of Panic software company (and not a professional journalist). He wrote a fascinating and suspenseful account of exploring the basement of the old Oregonian building. In this piece, which is simply a collection of photos and some small snippets of text, scrolling is the method used to advance the narrative. This creates suspense going from photo to photo, unveiling more and more of the narrative as the reader scrolls to explore this world.

In more traditional journalism environments, this might have been a slideshow, which I think would have completely ruined the experience.

Global Post’s America The Gutted project is all on one long web page in which the users scrolls down to see the different sections.

We also see the trend toward scrolling in big online news packages. Global Post’s America The Gutted piece piece was built as a single long webpage rather than paginated into separate pages. In the past, this type of single-page design convention was discouraged because it added to the load-time of the page, and bandwidth was at a premium. But with the proliferation of broadband, some web producers are opting for fewer separate pages within a single story and more content on a single page.

Scrolling also allows people to get a glimpse of what to expect from the package by quickly going down the page and scanning the content. Web usability studies show that users like to skim content, especially when presented with a large quantity of it. We’ve noticed that our journalism students similarly tend to scan through a piece before pausing to read or watch it.

Curtain

ESPN’s project on Doc Ellis uses a curtain effect to reveal each section of the project.

The curtain effect serves a few different purposes. Initially, it’s what my colleague Richard Koci Hernandez refers to as “eye candy,” a design embellishment that wows the user, and draws them into the story. but this effect is ephemeral and will lose its impact as more and more people use it and it becomes more commonplace.

The curtain effect also makes the process of scrolling more playful and adds a sense of mystery as the story unfolds as the curtain rises.

One of our graduate students, Erik Reyna, used this technology, called Curtain.js, in a story about homelessness. The curtain effect revealed different graphics and photos from the project, and encouraged readers to scroll through the piece.

Summing up

All of these components together create a more immersive experience for the viewer, like that found in traditional media like documentaries or long-form narratives. In a digital world, creating this experience needs to include design conventions and leveraging new technological innovations to engage readers. All of this is experimental, but my hope is journalists will analyze and build on projects like Snow Fall so we can more effectively deliver news and other content to the public.

“The sounds of silence.” It’s a vivid refrain we’re all familiar with, thanks to Simon and Garfunkel. Behind this apparent oxymoron lies something more, a certain sensibility that all digital producers work into their final projects. Skilled professionals use silence to help establish, build, and propel their stories forward. That goes beyond reaction shots from main characters, though; acting can only take a film so far. Adding carefully-selected and re-purposed B-roll shots can carry the emotional weight to pack a real emotional punch onscreen. To push a story along, filmmakers draw on a whole slew of effects, which can include audio-less clips that still speak for themselves. Here are five areas where filmmakers can incorporate stock clips to maximize emotional impact:

Nostalgia

Man washing car clip
If a film doesn’t start from the beginning, chances are at some point along the way it’ll feature a flashback to another time. These devices help viewers get much-needed context in a constructive and crafty way. Otherwise, characters would have to express revelations through awkward dialogue, and, worse, viewers would lose out on making connections that increase the depth of a story. Beyond highlighting attributes or trauma of a lead character, flashbacks can offer a glimpse into a different era. Pick a clip that both demonstrates an event, an episode, a season, or a time period, and drives the point home with emotion and mood that reinforces it.

Suspense relies on prolonging a feeling of mystery for as long as possible without alienating the viewer. The best directors achieve it thanks to a combination of great acting, steady camerawork, and a slow-burn pacing. To set the mood, they’ll allow a shot to go on for just a bit longer than others typically would, giving a clip enough time to marinate and resonate with the viewer. For instance, think about how Alfred Hitchcock masterfully lingered on a window, or on a dark bird, to give it a sense of importance. Watching it, you don’t know when it’ll come up or matter again. But it plants the idea in your head, handing you information that even the characters don’t have.

Confusion. Disorganization. Mayhem. They’re difficult emotions to display without having someone knock over a stack of papers or fall into a wedding cake. But digital producers must find ways to make everything seem crazed without losing sight of the plot. Yes, there’s an order to the disorder that must come through. Your best bet is to showcase stress and disruption through external effects first, such as crowded streets and people banging into one another, and then afterward to turn the focus onto the characters. People will naturally attach the emotions they see in one place to the one that immediately follow. That way, it’s not a reflection of the characters as much as the circumstances surrounding them.

This is one area where you must be careful to avoid cliches as we all associate certain places or objects with the same calming sense. However, settings like beach getaways can get in the way of telling a truly original and provocative story. Instead, the best filmmakers call on other ways to deliver the mood. One idea would be to zoom in on a blade of grass in the morning, slowly swaying in the wind. A closeup shot on something innocent and ordinary can soothe the viewer. The pace of motion in the clip also goes a long way towards communicating calm — keep it slow and your audience will find themselves in the right headspace for the action that follows.

This is a FIRST for me. I’ve never made my iphoneography available for purchase. So for a LIMITED time, 7 days, you can buy this image. It’s an honor to be working with the great folks @canvaspop to offer this limited edition print of one of my favorite images.

For me this image is about change and acceptance. I needed a reminder to embrace the now, instead of fighting against my current state of mind, wishing for some other circumstance. So, I captured this as a reminder to allow events, people and the circumstance of the moment to influence and change me, even the weather. Embrace the now, even if it’s raining. Thanks!

As leaves fall annually, Western Kentucky University’s Mountain Workshops draw a team of dedicated teachers and determined learners to a small Kentucky town, where together they explore the richness of community, the beauty of landscape, and the possibilities and challenges of visual storytelling.

The 37th annual Workshops will take place Oct. 16-21, 2012 in the city of Henderson, Ky. Please visit our web site at http://www.mountainworkshops.org and visit the application page to submit your information and register.